It is about religion
By Anthony | October 17th, 2005 | 11:04 pmThe Dover Area School District trial is still going on, pitting Intelligent Design against Evolutionary Theory. The York Daily Record (via The Panda’s Thumb) takes a look at the recent testimony of Brian Alters as he examines the implications of the statement that Dover Area High School students are required to listen to.
Part of the article is very telling. Advocates of ID often claim that Intelligent Design is not about religion. For instance, if you go back to the opening days of the trial, you’ll find statements like this:
In his opening statement yesterday, Pat Gillan, the lead attorney for the defence, argued the case was “about freedom in education, not about a religious agenda … It is not religion. Intelligent design is really science in its purest form – a refusal to close avenues of exploration in favour of a dominant theory.”
Yet according to the York Daily Record article, this exchange happened during the Defense’s cross examination of Alters:
As he continued, Alters said the statement singles out “gaps” in evolutionary theory, unlike, for instance, gaps in the theory of trajectory. The message conveyed to students is that evolution is to be mistrusted.
During cross-examination, Dover attorney Robert Muise raised differences in perceptions between evolution and other scientific theories.
He asked Alters about Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins’ statement that Darwin’s theory made it possible to be “an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
“Are you aware that the trajectory theory has ever made anyone an intellectually fulfilled atheist?” Muise asked.
Alters smiled and said he was not.
What does that have to do with anything if ID has nothing to do with religion? Lines of questioning like this, along with the fact that the majority of ID advocates seem to be of a single faith, make it difficult to give that claim any credence.
